Skatta was by instinct alone an excellent game dog, and her glory was to be in attendance on the taking down of a stack in the yard, to sit watching with all her wits about her, and to pounce on and despatch each rat as it appeared. There were rabbit warrens in the neighbourhood, not without danger to the terrier. In her hot pursuit of the rabbits, she would follow them into their burrows by passages and windings too narrow for her to turn herself in, while the sandy soil fell down behind her, and she was detained till her absence was remarked. The dog’s half-suffocated yelps indicated her subterranean place of imprisonment, when aid was speedily lent to restore her to the upper world. On other occasions Skatta’s feet were caught in the traps set by the rabbit-catchers, and though her bones were strong enough to resist the pressure, and she was not maimed, as so many of our cats became, but generally freed herself after a struggle, and returned home triumphantly without much injury, in two instances she was a serious sufferer from the accident. In the first it was not known that she had been caught in a trap, and nobody guessed why she paid such sedulous attention to one of her front paws, till after an interval of weeks, in the face of an impending lameness, a close examination detected a portion of brass-wire bound tightly round, and eating into the festering flesh. At a much later date, when Skatta was an old dog, her master missed her from his heel after crossing one of these warrens. It was a dark night, and he could not stay to search for her, even if it had been possible to find her. He trusted that, if she had been caught in a trap, she would free herself, as she had been wont to do, and follow on his steps. As she remained absent, however, the entire night—an unexampled incident in her history—my brother started early next morning in search of her, and found her lying unable to stir, with one of her legs terribly lacerated. She was carried carefully home, and after being tended for weeks, during which she showed great patience and gratitude, she was restored to the full use of her limbs. In spite of the danger, the rabbit-haunted links, with their wild thyme, cowslips, and harebells in the seasons, presented the utmost fascination in life to Skatta. After the links, she cared for the weasel and rat-frequented fields and ditches of the strath, with their bugloses and poppies, brooklime and irises; but the links formed _par excellence_ her happy hunting-ground. I have heard her master say that on returning home, or taking a stroll before retiring to rest on a summer night, her mute entreaty was sometimes so irresistible, that he would turn away from the house and take the path to the solemn sea and the silent links, to grant her the half-hour’s indulgence she besought.